


Calculated Risks

by rainfall



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 13:02:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5418095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainfall/pseuds/rainfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene I felt compelled to add on my recent playthrough of <i>Re-Chain of Memories</i>. Sora isn't the only one unsettled by Vexen's card from the "other side" of his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calculated Risks

"From all the memories that are locked in the other side of your heart," Vexen said, and even with Marluxia right there and Larxene's gaze intent on him it was so damn difficult not to _react_.

Axel counted to three in his head, then slid his eyes over to Larxene. She was _smiling_ , because of course she would be, and just for an instant he let himself imagine how good it would've felt to summon a chakram into his left hand and drive it repeatedly into her face, throat, belly, until he was up to his elbows in oozing syrupy darkness. All the while, she'd be screaming.

He could almost feel the shape of the chakram between his fingers if he squeezed them together hard enough, so Axel turned the movement into an airy gesture at the viewglobe between them. "Isn't this a little... risky? We start setting up worlds he doesn't recognize, he might stop cooperating."

Larxene frowned, like this hadn't occurred to her, because it probably hadn't – but Marluxia spared him only a flickered glance.

"Our staircase was missing a single step," he murmured. "And at this stage... _well_. He has his promise to keep, and he won't _abandon_ it lightly."

Not the answer Axel had been hoping for, but he forced himself to shrug. "Whatever you say, Boss." With just the right amount of stress on the last word, to hopefully clear up any... ugly misunderstandings that his _questioning the plan_ might've raised.

Luckily, he had every excuse to _not_ hang around in the room with the two of them while Sora traversed the eleventh floor. Traitors to deal with, and all that jazz.

Because Axel was pretty damn sure he couldn't have stopped his face from giving _something_ away when Sora used that "missing step" and a familiar town bathed in the golden light of its perpetually late-afternoon sun appeared.

 _Breathe_ , he reminded himself. _It doesn't matter._ The eleventh floor wasn't even very big. Sora'd be done in no time. Wouldn't even run into – anybody. Right. Because who was there for him to meet? _Breathe. Wait for your cue, and **breathe**._

But the air tasted the same. Even knowing that wasn't how the Castle worked, he couldn't shake the feeling that Sora was getting closer to that stupid clock tower with every room he forged. And if _that_ happened, if he shadowed Sora right out onto that ledge, and Vexen made his attack on _their clock tower_ –

_Easy, easy. One-two-three. You're going to give the whole game away._

He'd have to find a way to slip that into conversation with Saix, when he got back. Call the whole assignment a game. Maybe then, he'd see a glimmer of _something_. Or maybe not. Strangely, for all that just the _idea_ of that stupid clock tower was like a red haze on the edge of his vision, Axel wasn't sure he cared.

Seemed kind of backwards. But then again, what _other_ way could you expect a nonexistent heart to function?

Axel refocused his attention on what was actually happening in front of him just in time to see Sora approaching the last room, and in spite of reminding himself every other second he still forgot to breathe for a long moment–

–but then Sora was just at the gates on the outskirts of town, in front of some old, abandoned mansion Axel had never even seen before, and everything snapped back into refreshingly-cold focus.

Good. _Good_. Just some random building. Obviously someplace Sora's _other side_ had been, but nowhere that actually _mattered_ to anyone.

Axel brushed back his hood, sunk deeper into the darkest corner of the forged room, and waited.

Vexen was being his usual charming self, and for a moment Axel actually thought Sora was going to do his homework _for_ him – the kid seemed more than pissed off enough for it, bringing that keyblade of his down harder and faster than any other fight Axel had seen from him so far. Riku must've been a sore spot.

But he was just as glad when the moment passed, and Sora stopped to let their venerable No. IV make a last-ditch effort to save his own skin... by spilling a bunch of secrets that weren't his to spill.

"And you will share that fate, Sora! If you continue to seek the girl Namine, the shackles will tighten – you'll lose your heart, and end up becoming Marluxia's pawn!"

So what if he drew it out a little longer than was totally necessary? So what if he turned the heat up _just_ slowly enough to make sure Vexen could feel himself starting to cook, organs boiling, skin bubbling, for just a few long seconds before he stopped existing?

Maybe he hoped Vexen regretted choosing _this_ memory for their "missing step", but it wasn't something Larxene would ever guess, or Marluxia could ever prove. Just a few more seconds.

And, okay, five more words than he should've _technically_ let Vexen say before he got started.

Two chances taken. It would've been safer to just stick with one, but nothing about Castle Oblivion or his assignment here was _safe_. The best he could do was mitigate the risks.

And after what had felt like hours but couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes, he'd been really itching to pull the trigger on _something_.


End file.
